A Naxos catamaran cruise follows the beaches and capes of the largest Cycladic island and sails on to its sea caves. It is one of the island catamaran cruises in Greece on Greece VIP.
This post covers what a Naxos catamaran cruise includes, the west coast beaches and the sea caves. It also covers the islets, the south coast, sea life, marble and emery, protected areas and sea traffic. Nearby islands, the best season and common questions come last.
Each section ends with a Naxos catamaran cruise or a nearby cruise that can be booked online.
What does a Naxos catamaran cruise include?
A Naxos catamaran cruise sails from the main port to Rina cave. It also makes swim stops in the Small Cyclades. Lunch comes with local wine on both listed routes. Snorkel gear is carried on board for the swim stops.
Public listings describe two routes for catamaran trips on Naxos. The first sails from the port straight to Rina cave. Lunch and a Koufonisia stop follow.
The second Naxos catamaran cruise stops at Iraklia for a swim, then Koufonisi for lunch. Coming back, it anchors at Rina cave and Alyko beach.
One listed catamaran carries a skipper and one crew member. Both listed routes include snorkelling equipment. Weather can change the published stops on the second route.
Lunch on one listed catamaran is a Greek meal with local wine and vegetarian options. The other serves a light lunch of local mezes and fruit.
The snack bar on one listed Naxos catamaran cruise offers coffee, soft drinks, beer, local wine and cocktails. It also serves traditional snacks and fruit.
On a Naxos catamaran cruise, guests swim inside Rina cave from the anchored boat. Others climb to the top of the cave and dive in.
- Language: The second route runs with an English-speaking crew.
- Water: Bottled water is included on the second route.
- Alyko: This beach ends the second route with snorkelling.
Both Naxos catamaran cruise routes return to the port of Naxos.
Which west coast beaches does a Naxos catamaran cruise pass?
A Naxos catamaran cruise passes Agios Georgios, Agios Prokopios, Agia Anna, Plaka, Orkos, Mikri Vigla and Kastraki. State beach profiles record length and direction for the first three and Mikri Vigla. Cedars grow behind Agios Prokopios, Mikri Vigla and Kastraki.
The state profile calls Agios Georgios the busiest beach of Naxos, as it lies inside Chora. A Naxos catamaran cruise leaving port passes it first.
A Naxos catamaran cruise passes Agios Prokopios, in the north of Agia Anna bay. Cedar and tamarisk shrubs grow behind its sand.
At Agia Anna, wooden walkways cross the cedar forest at the south end. They give bathers access and protect the habitat.
A Naxos catamaran cruise follows Plaka beach. Its dirt road cannot be paved, as it crosses a protected area of natural beauty.
A Naxos catamaran cruise reaches Mikri Vigla, whose natural shore faces north-west. Dunes with cedar shrubs rise behind the sand.
A Naxos catamaran cruise also passes Kastraki, about 16 km from Naxos town. Dunes and rare cedars back more than 3 km of sand there.
- Orkos: Red hills rise behind its golden sand.
- Plaka length: Its sand stretches at least 3 km.
- Agia Anna: It joined the state bathing register in 2018.
Cedars and dunes back Agios Prokopios, Mikri Vigla and Kastraki on the west coast.
Which sea caves does a Naxos catamaran cruise visit?
A Naxos catamaran cruise visits Rina cave, a sea cave on Naxos itself. Near Pori on Koufonisi, boats reach Gala and the Xylobatis caves. The Xylobatis caves can be reached only from the sea. Off Iraklia, boats pass the Seal Cave.
A Naxos catamaran cruise stops at Rina cave. Miniature stalactites cover its roof, and birds and bats shelter among them.
The Devil’s Eye on Koufonisi is a small, low cave. A hole beside its entrance lets the sea flood the floor and then drain out.
Gala on Koufonisi looks like an open-air cave in a hole in the ground. A narrow opening at its base lets seawater onto a tiny beach.
Its Greek name means milk, after the milky colour of its limestone rocks. Visitors reach it on foot from Pori, or more easily by boat.
On calm days, swimmers can cross a narrow passage from Gala to the open sea. Gala’s older name, Tripiti, comes from the Greek word for hole.
The Xylobatis caves lie about 150 m north of Pori. One is a tunnel through the rock, and the other holds a small sandy beach.
- Gear: Without diving gear, only Rina’s entrance can be explored.
- Rina length: One yachting source puts Rina at about 60 m long.
- Seal Cave: Seals can be spotted there with luck.
Public listings for a Naxos catamaran cruise name Rina as the cave stop.
Which islets does a Naxos catamaran cruise pass?
A Naxos catamaran cruise passes two contrasting islet sites. Panagia Parthena, a rock off Mikri Vigla, carries a white chapel to the Virgin Mary. The Makares, between Naxos and Donousa, shelter falcons, gulls and shearwaters. A recent check found no rats there.
Panagia Parthena, seen on a Naxos catamaran cruise, lies 400 metres from Mikri Vigla village. Paved steps lead up from the sea to the chapel.
Mass is held there once a year, on Ascension Day, 40 days after Easter. Shepherds once handed out ksinogala, a sour milk, at the feast.
The Makares fall under the Donousa unit of the municipality of Naxos and the Small Cyclades. One islet, Prasini, is also known as Agia Paraskevi.
German researchers Dietrich Ristow, Winfried Scharlau and Michael Wink saw the value of the islets in the 1960s. Wink then monitored the falcon colony regularly.
The Hellenic Ornithological Society started monitoring the Makares falcons in 2004. In 2016, it returned to tackle invasive rats that ate falcon eggs and chicks.
Guests on a Naxos catamaran cruise can look for Audouin’s gulls, European shags and Eleonora’s falcons. Yelkouan and Scopoli’s shearwaters use the islets too.
- First tags: In 2010, Makares shearwaters got Greece’s first Yelkouan transmitters.
- Pilgrims: On Ascension Day, boats carry people from Mikri Vigla.
- Access: Swimmers and canoes also reach Panagia Parthena.
A Naxos catamaran cruise pairs a feast chapel with a seabird refuge.
What does a Naxos catamaran cruise see along the south coast?
A Naxos catamaran cruise along the south coast sees the small settlements of Pyrgaki, Agiassos and Kalantos. Together they held 109 permanent residents in 2021. A state profile rates the water at Agiassos as high quality. Kalantos lies about 40 km from Chora.
Pyrgaki belongs to the local community of Damarionas. The state recognised it as a settlement in the 1981 count, when only 7 people lived there.
Pyrgaki, passed on a Naxos catamaran cruise, counted 41 residents in 1991. The figure rose to 48 in 2011, then fell to 23 in 2021.
The official state profile gives Agiassos beach room for up to an estimated 700 bathers. The beach became an official bathing water in 2018.
Agiassos beach has toilets, showers and bins, yet it is not organised and has no shade. A seasonal stream meets the sea at the beach.
Agiassos beach, seen on a Naxos catamaran cruise, lies inside Natura 2000 site GR4220014. Its water has high ecological status, free of major pollution sources.
Kalantos, visible from a Naxos catamaran cruise, lies about 20 km from Filoti by paved road. The final 1 to 2 km is a dirt track.
- Kalantos count: The village had 103 residents in 1991 and 7 in 2021.
- Track: An 11.7 km dirt road links Agiassos and Kalantos.
- Name: Kalantos is thought to be named after Kalandos in Caria.
All three villages on this Naxos catamaran cruise shrank from 2011 to 2021.
What sea life does a Naxos catamaran cruise meet?
A Naxos catamaran cruise crosses waters where rare animals turn up. A monk seal pup once came ashore at Agia Anna. The first recorded green turtle nest in the Cyclades hatched on Naxos. Alien urchins have reached Naxos too.
On 19 September 2012, two German visitors found a monk seal pup at Agia Anna’s port beach. The same beach serves sunset cruises on Naxos.
Seal group MOm judged the pup about three weeks old and moved it to Athens, bound for Alonnisos. It died on Alonnisos on 5 October.
ARCHELON had logged green turtle nests in Greece only on Rhodes and Crete before the Naxos one. A Naxos wildlife group steered hatchlings to sea.
Dolphin facts for a Naxos catamaran cruise come from a review of Greek data from 1991 to 2002. It logged 821 sightings and 715 strandings.
Short-beaked common dolphins were both sighted and stranded in the Cyclades. Yet striped dolphin data were missing there, since no surveys had covered the area.
Snorkellers on a Naxos catamaran cruise share Naxos waters with Diadema setosum, an Indian Ocean urchin. It was first recorded in Greek waters in 2010.
- Loggerheads: They nest on about 100 km of Greek beaches.
- Falcons: Greece holds 12,299 of about 15,000 Eleonora’s falcon pairs.
- Shearwaters: Makares birds seem to prefer Black Sea fishing grounds.
Wildlife groups watch these Naxos catamaran cruise waters.
What marble and emery does a Naxos catamaran cruise see from the sea?
The coast around a Naxos catamaran cruise holds an ancient marble quarry and emery mining land. Its metamorphic rocks formed 20 to 40 km below the surface. The richest Greek emery deposits lie in the north-east. An aerial ropeway carried it to the coast.
Naxian marble alternates with migmatite in layers that strike north-east. Old fissures hold marble up to 30 metres thick.
Inland from a Naxos catamaran cruise, the migmatite core formed 20 to 40 kilometres down. Rocks below the Naxos detachment fault slid over 20 kilometres.
Near Apollonas, on the north coast, lies an ancient surface quarry. Its unfinished kouros is light grey Naxian marble. The figure rests on a 30-degree slope.
Ludwig Ross moved another, smaller unfinished kouros from this quarry to Athens in 1834. The giant figure also features on tours of Naxos by land.
Emery seen from a Naxos catamaran cruise began as karst bauxite. Its chemistry matches Jurassic Greek bauxites. Metamorphic grade rises from the south-east to the centre.
Built from 1926 to 1929, the ropeway was the first major public work on Naxos. Five loading stations fed its double wire rope.
- Pylons: Its iron towers rose 5 to 43 metres.
- Length: The wire rope ran about 8,720 metres.
- Wagons: The line used 170 wagons and two engines.
Today the ropeway above the Naxos catamaran cruise coast is an industrial monument.
Which protected areas surround a Naxos catamaran cruise?
The NECCA agency lists four Natura 2000 sites around a Naxos catamaran cruise. GR4220014 covers central and southern Naxos with a marine zone. GR4220026 covers the island’s high mountains. GR4220013 and GR4220021 cover the Small Cyclades and nearby waters.
GR4220014 spans 8,721.71 hectares, of which 6,863.18 are land. Its coast faces a Naxos catamaran cruise from Vigla in the west to Moutsouna in the east.
Seen from a Naxos catamaran cruise, its habitats include sea cliffs, reefs and sand dunes. Posidonia meadows and monk seal sightings mark its marine area.
For GR4220014, NECCA lists the green turtle and five bat species. Its south-east side is a stopover for migrating birds. Seal shooting is a threat.
The mountains behind a Naxos catamaran cruise form site GR4220026, with 46 listed bird species. They include Eleonora’s falcon, the griffon vulture and the European shag.
The Small Cyclades site GR4220013 covers 12,580.72 hectares, 5,449.08 of them land. Its record lists the Mediterranean monk seal and 17 plant species.
Alyki, the largest wetland on Naxos and in the Cyclades, became a wildlife refuge in 2004. It covers about 170 hectares south of Chora.
- GR4220021: Its record lists Audouin’s gull and the storm petrel.
- Dunes: Law 3937/2011 bans off-road driving on dunes and beaches.
- Seagrass: EU Regulation 1967/2006 bans trawls and seines over Posidonia beds.
NECCA’s Central Aegean unit manages all four, among 41 sites.
How busy is the sea around a Naxos catamaran cruise?
Ferry traffic dominates the sea around a Naxos catamaran cruise. Eurostat counted 1,159,000 passengers at Naxos port in 2023. July to September carried 61 percent. Cruise ships stay rare, as Naxos ranked 33rd of 51 Greek cruise ports.
Traffic at the home port of a Naxos catamaran cruise nearly doubled from 597,000 passengers in 1997. It fell to 445,000 in 2020, then recovered.
Summer fills the waters of a Naxos catamaran cruise. The July to September quarter of 2023 handled 706,000 passengers. January to March handled only 57,000.
Arrivals and departures balance closely, with 582,000 passengers landing in 2023 and 577,000 leaving. Eurostat logs all of this traffic as domestic, between Greek ports.
Cruise liners form a tiny share of traffic near a Naxos catamaran cruise. The Hellenic Ports Association logged 32 calls and 2,987 cruise passengers in 2023.
Across Greece, ports logged 5,231 cruise calls and 6,988,015 passengers in 2023. Naxos had 16 calls in 2019 and 6 in 2022, with 886 passengers.
Rafina adds summer boats to the main Piraeus service. Crete links to Naxos in peak season. Weekly boats arrive from Kavala, Limnos, Chios and Samos.
- Vessels: Ferries, hydrofoils and fast catamarans serve Piraeus.
- Off-season: Santorini keeps ferry links, but Mykonos does not.
- Harbour: Daily car ferries cause frequent traffic jams in Chora.
In summer, the main Naxos catamaran cruise port lacks enough facilities.
Which nearby islands pair with a Naxos catamaran cruise?
Paros, Antiparos, Mykonos, Ios and Amorgos lie near Naxos. Four have direct ferries from Naxos port, 11 to 38 nautical miles away. Antiparos needs a change of boat on Paros. Paros is nearest to a Naxos catamaran cruise base.
Paros lies 11 nautical miles, about 20 km, from the Naxos catamaran cruise port. It is the closest of these five islands to Naxos.
Antiparos has no direct ferry from Naxos. Visitors change boats at Parikia on Paros, the base for boat trips from Paros.
Mykonos municipality covers 105.183 km². Its port lies 21 nautical miles from Naxos. Only Paros sits closer to a Naxos catamaran cruise port.
Ios covers 109.024 km² and had 2,299 residents in 2021. Tradition places Homer’s tomb on the island, and the island once minted coins showing him.
Amorgos is the easternmost island of the Cyclades. Katapola, its main port, lies about 32 nautical miles from Naxos, and Aegiali about 38.
Mykonos hotels hit 63.4% bed occupancy in 2023, and Ios hotels 57.4%. Both beat Naxos municipality, home port of a Naxos catamaran cruise, at 45.4%.
- Pelican: Petros settled on the Mykonos waterfront after a 1954 storm.
- Ios: The crossing covers 24 nautical miles.
- Despotiko: The islet belongs to the municipality of Antiparos.
Of the five islands, only Antiparos lacks a direct ferry from Naxos port.
When is the best season for a Naxos catamaran cruise?
The main season runs from June to September, when South Aegean hotels stay over 69% full. July peaked at 80.8% in 2023. Ferry links that feed a Naxos catamaran cruise also peak in summer. Winter brings fewer island sailings.
The Naxos deputy mayor for tourism says summer on the island continues into September. He names climate, food and festivals as draws for off-season visitors.
In 2023, South Aegean hotel bed occupancy was 29.8% in April and 75.5% in June. It fell to 39.2% in October and 7.3% in November.
Official counts show 174 hotels with 7,910 beds in the Naxos regional unit in 2023. Hotels in Naxos municipality logged 147,786 guest arrivals that year.
The Naxos to Mykonos route reaches up to 7 daily crossings in high summer. In January, timetables show one weekly sailing from Mykonos to Naxos.
Naxos to Ios runs daily from June to August. February sailings drop to five days a week. Katapola on Amorgos keeps a daily winter line.
For a Naxos catamaran cruise, sea state changes by season. A wave atlas of the Aegean found winter wave power about twice the yearly mean.
- Low point: January occupancy fell to 6.5%.
- August: South Aegean lodgings logged 1,624,141 arrivals.
- Winter: Northern Aegean waves carry peak power.
Spring shifts peak wave power south toward Crete.
What do travelers ask about a Naxos catamaran cruise?
Travelers ask about buses, child fares, health care, ferries, pets and weather before a Naxos catamaran cruise.
How far is the port from Agios Prokopios for a Naxos catamaran cruise?
Agia Anna lies 5 km from the Naxos catamaran cruise port. Line 1 runs from town to Plaka through both beaches. Buses run every half hour. Coaches leave across from the ticket office, by the port.
Do children pay less on ferries linked to a Naxos catamaran cruise?
A Ministry of Shipping circular of 15 July 2013 covers all Greek coastal passenger ships. Children up to age 5 travel free. Ages 5 to 10 get a 50% fare discount. A birth certificate or other public document proves age.
Where is the health centre near a Naxos catamaran cruise port?
The Naxos General Hospital and Health Centre stands on the main road from the port to the villages. It opened as a health centre in 1987 and became a hospital in 2001. It has a children’s doctor and a CT scanner.
How are Naxos and Paros ferries timed around a Naxos catamaran cruise?
The Naxos to Paros route runs all year. High season brings over 10 daily crossings. In January and February, one ferry line still sails between them every day. An October timetable lists about 21 weekly sailings from Naxos to Paros.
Can pets join a Naxos catamaran cruise?
On Greek passenger ships, pets under 10 kg travel anywhere in a carrier. Large dogs stay on open decks, leashed and with their owner. They cannot enter enclosed shared spaces. Rabies shots, a microchip and health certificates are all required.
What happens if a Naxos catamaran cruise is cancelled for weather?
Port authorities suspend sailings in bad weather under Presidential Decree 852/1976. Limits depend on ship type and size. A Naxos catamaran cruise captain decides whether to sail in worse weather than forecast. The captain then alerts port officials and passengers.